Dinosaurs and Evolution

#BestBubby

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 7:23 pm

Zahava94 wrote:

The best way I've found to reconcile apparent contradictions between scientific discovery and the Torah's account of creation, as well as additional stories found within it that relate to natural history, is to understand that the Torah is not a history book. It is a guide book, meant to impart lessons and rules to live one's life by, and therefore, not all historical references or details need to be literal. It isn't the stories themselves that are concrete, it is the lessons we learn from them. Consequently, we can potentially accept any scientific version of past events, no matter if it relates to dinosaurs, the

age of the universe, or evolution, without casting doubt on the veracity of the Torah, so long as we accept that God orchestrated it all.

This method avoids the issues of forcing phenomena to match with the Torah's account of everything, like Dr. Gerald Schroeder attempts to do in his books, or cherry picking data that seems to match while ignoring anything else.

Strongly disagree.

The theory of evolution is total unscientific nonsense to deny existence of Creator.

Rabbi Avigdor Miller wrote two excellent books refuting evolution based on science:
"rejoice o youth" and " sing you righteous"

These same anti science scientists claim a man can give birth.

If there is a conflict between Torah and these lying scientists frum Jews believe the Torah.

#BestBubby

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 7:28 pm

my mama wrote:

My child is obsessed with dinosaurs and we went to the Museum of Natural History to see the fossils and it was so fascinating.

I came up with a couple of theories to reconcile science with the Torah (not the other way around).

1. They say some dinosaurs were already extinct by the time the later dinosaurs 'evolved'. We know that time and space is a creation like any other, meaning that the first "Friday" when Hashem created the animals might have been millions of years in our times.

2. The same goes for fish and sharks and whatnot. Science claims that sea life was around millions of years before any land mammals. They were created on "Thursday" which according to my first point could have lasted for millions of years.

3. The fact that the world appears to be billions of years old could have two reasons, A) Hashen did not create a brand new baby world. The world was created already matured, the trees were already bearing fruit etc. B) the Mabul aged the world greatly as well.

I believe the Six Days of Creation were 24 hour days and not billions of years is because it says 7 times in the Torah

V'yehi Erev, V'Yehi Boker, Yom -------

"And it was evening and it was morning,
(First day, second day, third day, etc)"

What is the purpose for saying seven times
It was morning and it was evening?

To teach us that it was literally ONE day, not billions of years.

BH Yom Yom

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 7:28 pm

my mama wrote:

Honestly no idea. There are many articles about humans and Neanderthal copulation that I found with just a cursory google search. The pre-Mabul part I don't know what the sources are.

Yea, the mabul part I’m curious about, if anyone knows where to look to learn more.

lovingmommy3417

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 7:42 pm

#BestBubby wrote:

One day in Hashem's world may not be 24 hours.

iyar

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 7:42 pm

There’s a brilliant book by Andrew Goldfinger, a frum physicist, called Thinking About Creation. It’s for sure worth reading if anyone wants answers that get into the depth of how we understand what time is and how we can understand the psukim in Bereishis that tell us about the creation of the world. Like the saying goes, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. There are a lot of deep concepts in Bereishis that we’re not meant to delve into and we can’t understand, but Goldfinger does a great job explaining what’s explainable.

iyar

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 7:53 pm

#BestBubby wrote:

It’s not a good idea to dismiss scientists across the board as liars.
We know that חכמה בגויים תאמין. (The source is Eicha Rabba, based on a passuk in Eicha and a passuk in Ovadia.)
There’s a teshuva from Rav Asher Weiss, one of the prominent poskim of our generation, where he discusses the halachic origins and parameters of relying on רב מומחים, the majority of experts, when bringing down a psak on a medical matter.

singleagain

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 8:01 pm

My dad said that he learned that the way the pasuk describes grass on day three could be a source on evolution. Chapter 1 verse 11, it goes through the different grass and vegetation from simple to more complex... Like it was evolving

singleagain

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 8:02 pm

#BestBubby wrote:

Then why did Hashem write

"It was evening and it was morning one day" ?

That was not necessary except to emphasize it was one literal day.

If the sun and moon weren't created till day 4, what does evening and morning mean before that?

lostprincess

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 8:27 pm

There's an amazing video from Rav Zamir Cohen given to university students addressing dinosaurs and the theory of evolution and the place of science in all this. Really worth watching. It's in Hebrew but with English subtitles. I have a filter so it's hard for me to look it up but it should come up in a google search.

lovingmommy3417

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 8:31 pm

#BestBubby wrote:

Then why did Hashem write

"It was evening and it was morning one day" ?

That was not necessary except to emphasize it was one literal day.

The sun and moon were not even created until day 4. It means a day in whatever that means to Hashem. There was no sun setting and rising. It just says light and dark were created day 1. We can't possibly understand what the world was like then.

farmom

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 8:45 pm

Rappel wrote:

Those were the נפילים, and after the מבול we hear of the ענקים. Not necessarily the same kind of being.

I think the meforshim say that golius was 9 feet tall. Which is big but not crazy giant. Og I remember learning was much taller, but actually he was from before the mabul

#BestBubby

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 8:53 pm

iyar wrote:

I am not sure that applies when scientists and doctors will have their careers ended if they don't toe the government line.

In soviet union there was a crazy unscientific theory called " lysenkoism" which caused millions of people to DIE!
But all the soviet scientists had to say they believed in lysenkoism if they wanted to keep their jobs.

We are living under the same tyranny in USA

Zahava94

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 9:00 pm

#BestBubby wrote:

You can certainly disagree. Yet the method I presented has plenty of basis within the realm of Orthodox thought, with Rambam and R' Shamshon Refael Hirsch as just two authorities who align with it, not to mention many others. I do admit, however, that your "method" of simply calling any science that seems to contradict something written in the Torah as a lie, is not only foolish, but very dangerous, because it'll inevitably lead many rational thinkers astray.